


the Spider's Trials

by MidoriyaMumble



Category: Original Work
Genre: Author is Nonbinary, Gen, Lai is nonbinary, please pay attention to any chapter warnings, rated mature for themes like abuse and death, the gods in this story have no set gender, this story discusses serious topics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:55:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27459094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidoriyaMumble/pseuds/MidoriyaMumble
Summary: Lai must face the past, a past that Lai had attempted to forget, to bury. And with each part of it faced, a decision must be made. Forgiveness or revenge.
Kudos: 1





	the Spider's Trials

All my life I had been afraid of spiders. Not scorpions, just spiders. And all my life I had been surrounded by them. Crawling, crawling, they were always crawling. Staring. Hiding just out of reach. Phantom spiders often crawled along my skin, and when I closed my eyes there they were. Always. And yet, never once did they cause me harm. I felt as if they were waiting. Watching. For what I didn’t know. 

And then _it_ happened. I met _them_. 

It was late, I had been unable to sleep. It felt as if I was waiting for something, the air felt electric. Then came the noise. The _noise_. Scuttling and scraping, hissing like laughter. And then they began to appear.

First it was one, then one thousand, then more. They scuttled out from every corner of the room, small and black, each shining, glistening, and though I was terrified I was unable to scream. Unable to move. I was paralised.

They all converged on my wall, just beyond my bed, forming first a rectangle the size of a door, and then they filled in, and filled in, and filled in, piling one on top of the other. They seemed to go on forever, and then where they had converged it was clear the wall was not there anymore.

Unable to control my own legs I stepped into the abyss, I was not breathing. I was not thinking. The walls of the tunnel were moving, made up of a hundred million tiny glistening bodies, their tiny eyes staring at me as I passed. I don’t know how long I walked through that tunnel. It could have been mere seconds or it could have been days, but with every step the spiders I had left behind scuttled to form more tunnel ahead, and not one ever took its eyes off of me. 

As I walked the light slowly dwindled. Their glistening bodies now invisible. There was only darkness and the hissing and scraping of millions of tiny legs on top of hard bodies. Still I felt their eyes on me. Still I was being watched. My head was filled with buzzing fog, my fingers began to numb from the immense cold. Time still did not seem to pass.

Eventually the tunnel began to change, light returned and webs began to shoot out from the ground beneath me, growing thicker and thicker as I travelled. I began to breathe, and as my breaths came, so too did the tears. And then, as I exited the tunnel to a room made of spider’s silk, a sudden calm washed over me. 

In the very centre of the room there stood a person, tall, lean, with dark, curly hair and four pairs of arms. The figure was clad in black fabric that draped over them, cinched by golden bands at their arms and waist and their skin was the colour of bone. Along their shoulders were golden tattoos of skulls that seemed to be screaming in pain. 

I should have been terrified, yet I was entranced by the beauty— that was the only word I could have used to describe the being before me— of this deity. Yes, it was instantly clear that before me was a deity. I could feel the cold power radiating from them, the chill of death that clung to their skin. Inhuman, yet above human. I was at the mercy of the Spider God. 

They stood facing the other way, yet it felt as though they were watching me despite that. Slowly they turned, a gentle smile gracing their lips, and their eight eyes scanned me slowly. A name seemed to float through the fog of my mind, “ _Kumo.”_

_“Indeed,”_ the voice did not come from the being in front of me, instead it seemed to rasp out from thousands of spiders hidden just behind the webbing, _“I have been waiting so long for you.”_ Kumo spread their eight arms out, and the hissing of spiders legs almost sounded like a cold chuckle. 

_“You shall face your past,”_ Kumo’s lips still did not move, but their eyes seemed to warm some, _“I hope you, unlike many, shall not go mad.”_

Kumo reached into the webbing and pulled out a set of shears, the blades were a pure black, as if made from pure darkness. _“I wish you luck.”_

“Thank you,” I said, feeling as though perhaps Kumo had meant it, that perhaps they wanted me to succeed. It would not be the first time that a death god seemed to offer support to me. 

Kumo smiled once more and offered me a hand, which I took. I was led once again into a tunnel of spiders, but this time as I walked the light never vanished— it shone golden from the god’s arms. 

As we walked hand in hand, the fog began to clear from my mind. My thoughts returned to me, slow as cold honey. _Cold honey_ , that was the best way to describe Kumo’s glowing eyes, eyes that were still watching me, observing me. There was no judgement in them, even as I began to shake from the ever growing cold, only a distant curiosity. 

_“Are you afraid?”_ this time the voice came from Kumo, low and gentle, yet raspy as if the god’s throat had been scraped up. For a moment I had the horrifying image of millions of spiders crawling from it, scratching at the delicate flesh within. 

“No,” I answered, and, despite being surrounded by that which I feared the most, it was the truth. I still felt eerily calm, and I didn’t know if it was the influence of the god beside me or if it was just that if I felt the fear I should have I would break completely. 

There was that cold, hissing chuckle again, _“Good.”_

I was not sure what to make of that, exactly. On one hand, it could have indicated that I was indeed safe for now, or, on the other hand, it could have meant I would be entertaining prey for the never-ending sea of spiders surrounding us. Either way, I figured it best not to question things too much. 

_“We’ll start easy, but— as it always is— the choice will not always be so easy.”_ Kumo spoke gently, slowly. I nodded, it made sense, whatever I faced was never going to be easy. After all, any time one is called upon by the gods it is never simple or easy. 

I did, however, wonder what choice it was that I would be facing, what test I was calmly walking toward. 

Not a moment after I had wondered that the tunnel opened up into another room wrapped in webs. _“You finally asked the right question,”_ Kumo said, letting go of my hand, _“Make your choice. When you do, we shall move on to the next.”_

As he said that, his body disintegrated into thousands of multicoloured spiders that crawled into the walls of webbing and vanished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is to be my first novel, so I would appreciate feedback, be it positive or negative.  
> You're always welcome to help support this and other endeavors of mine at Ko-fi.com/midoriyamumble


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